n the early days of multicopter technology, you couldn’t just buy a drone and fly it straight from the box. Early adopters, like Stefanie Williams and Pete Stanton, faced many technical challenges before they could take a camera to the air. They built their first drone completely from scratch. There were no ready to fly kits back then and everything had to be purchased separately. So you’d buy four motors, four speed controllers, a flight controller and a frame and then you had to get out the tools and put it all together. Once it was built, it all had to be connected to a computer and programmed. From then onwards it was very much a case of trial and error and a lot of crossing fingers. Their passion and expertise for flying and filming was evident from the outset and it was only logical that they created Aerialworx and turned it into a new career. Today, Aerialworx is one the top drone companies in the UK offering an unique and unrivalled service. Not only do they use commercial drones, they also build their own custom drones from their impressive workshop kitted with the latest state-of-the-art CNC cutting machinery and 3D printer. Their bespoke drones carry everything from cameras to shoe boxes and laser lights.

CAPTURING AMAZING DRONE SHOTS

We caught up with the Aerialworx team as they were preparing for a commercial shoot for Aggregate Industries and we asked them, how they obtain these amazing results? Pete Stanton replied, “Well, a lot of the work is done before we arrive on location. We have to undertake a number of things including an airspace check, site survey and risk assessment. Once we know we’re safe to fly at the location we must obtain landowner permission and identify an operating area. For the filming itself, we have a fleet of eight different drones and we’ll help the client to choose the best drone for the job. Once we’re on location, we will setup the operating area and the drone. It’s a dual-operator drone with one person controlling the camera and the other person flying the drone. After a safety briefing to the film crew, we will take-off and fly a recce flight. The purpose of this flight it to identify the potential shots as this is often the first time that anyone has seen any aerial shots from the location. We then use a live high definition downlink from the drone camera to the ground so that we can see what we’re filming and the rest as they say is … magic!”